Customer Reviews

A Significant Other: Riding the Centenary Tour de France with Lance Armstrong

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a curious book, cutting between Pena'a narrative of an individual stage, which is great if you're a racing cyclist (I am) or an enthusiastic fan, and Matt Randall's history and philosophy of bike racing. Matt could be accused of overly philosophising, especially when he's trying to use professional cycling as a metaphor for the sins of globalisation, which is a bit of a stretch. I enjoyed the read, the book misses out on a top rating because of Matt's final chapter. It's a bike race, fortunatly Pena provides the narrative to carry the politics!

This book is on a different level, artistically and intellectually, from most cycling journalism. I've read a bevy of Tour de France books and this is the best by far. It takes a different angle on professional cycling, the perspective of the domestique, to show you things about the sport that you would never learn reading yet another book about Lance or the other stars. The story of Victor Hugo Pena (now exiled from Lance, but riding with another team, Phonak) is far more representative of life in the peloton than that of the stars, and so tells you so much more about the cruel, beautiful sport of cycling.

I bought this book because I thought I'd learn more about the job of the domestiques in general, and about Victor Hugo Pena specifically. And I really enjoyed the half of the book that was about Victor Hugo Pena. Those portions of the book are well written and engaging. But I was bored by the other half of the book that was more philosophical and historical. There are plenty of books about the history of the Tour de France and I would have bought one of those if I had wanted to read about the Tour. I wish the book had only been about domestiques and Victor Hugo Pena. The book is still worth a read, but it could have been so much better.

The part of this book about Victor Hugo Pena and the Tour for this year is exceptional. It provides tremendous insight as to the amazing physical ability of Pena, who was participating as a domestique, although he was a champion cyclist himself.
Victor's description of the pain during the time trial is classic. I may put that paragraph on my training room wall.
However when the author goes into detail on the TDF route over the years, it becomes tedious and for me, meaningless. Who cares how many times the TDF went through village X?
Then we get an interpretation of the tour and the history of France (if not all mankind) which lost me early on. Maybe these chapters should have been in another book.
In summary, I'm glad I read the book. The good outweighed the "not so interesting" part.